PUPILS at a new Swindon primary school will learn a stones’ throw away from the remains of a 2,000-year-old Roman farmstead.

Badbury Park Primary School opens its doors in September at a temporary site in the new housing development off Marlborough Road.

And the school’s permanent home on Day House Lane will open next year, just yards from a Romano-British farm.

The archaeological site, thought to date back to 100 AD to 300 AD, was excavated as part of the original planning application for the Badbury Park development in 2010.

Its presence has meant a constrained site for the new primary school, which will be set over two floors.

But it also means a huge green space for the new pupils, who have playing fields, a copse and stream to play in at the primary school site.

Head of school Louise Dance says she plans to use the green space to full affect, with a focus on forest school sessions and outdoor lessons.

“Every day will be full of mud and wonder at Badbury Park,” she told prospective parents at an open event at the Sun Inn, Coate, this week.

“They will come home tired, covered in mud, sand, glitter and glue. When you say, ‘what did you do?’ they will be too tired to tell you.”

The experienced teacher, who has two decades’ experience at Swindon schools, added: “I feel like it’s a dream come true to be put in charge of this school.”

Pupils would visit the nearby Richard Jefferies Museum for forest school lessons in the first year, while the first reception class were being taught on the temporary site, Mrs Dance added.

The link between the school and the museum is expected to be a close one. Badbury Park has chosen as its logo the Richard Jefferies Museum’s distinctive three leaves.

The school is the fifth in the Blue Kite Academy Trust chain, joining Ferndale Primary School, Ruskin Junior School, Abbey Meads Primary School and William Morris Primary. It had been due to open in September 2018, but concerns from the Education and Skills Funding Agency over delays in winning planning permission saw the date put back a year.

Speaking at an open event this week, chief executive of the Blue Kite trust Gary Evans, said he wanted Badbury Park Primary School to be a school “for the community”. He added: “This school could be here for 80 to 100 years.”

For more, visit: www.bluekitetrust.org.uk/badbury-park.